Purge the Parlor-Revolutionaries

[Cross Posted at Polycentric Order]


Quite often, especially in these post-Ron Paul days, I am asked by my comrades why I so detest the reformists in the broader libertarian movement. After all, they say, are we not all working towards the same goals? Are we not all libertarians? Are we not all fighting the same enemy? If only such were the case, but unfortunately it is not. Unfortunately, to reach victory we, the revolutionaries, must follow a path of truth, and though truth may be less kind than the reformists' compromise, its path of success is undeniable.

Indeed, reformists are everywhere a disease, a terrible virus leeching off of the strength of Anarchist youth while injecting a poison into the veins of the libertarian movement. Extinguishing the burning flames of liberty within our comrades, those that may once have been fully hostile to imperial-collectivism and completely willing to die for their beliefs in freedom and justice, they spread their wings of preclusion and barrel their beaks into the fresh streams of Anarchist power snapping up the minnows of our movement like a hawk from the high hills of Gareb.

Oh, but the reformists tell you that they desire the same thing; they tell you that we are all in the same boat. But are we really? Are victory and defeat really so similar? But of course the reformists will not admit to being defeatists; they will not admit to their compromise, their abhorrent corruptions! They will lure you with a soothsaying tongue of deviation; they will attract the weak like a pedophile predator offering candy in a white van outside of the elementary school. Yes, the father of Agorism, Samuel Edward Konkin III, warned us of these defeatists.

Advises our dear comrade from his book the New Libertarian Manifesto,

since few libertarians are very consistent yet, deviationism will run rife and tend to overwhelm activism. “Get-Liberty-quick” schemes from anarchozionism (running away to a Promised Land of Liberty) to political opportunism will seduce the impatient and sway the incompletely informed. All will fail if for no other reason than Liberty grows individual by individual… The strategy of the first New Libertarians is to combat anti-principles which strengthen the Stare and dissipate anarchist energy uselessly. The general strategy outlines previously applies; get libertarians into counter-economics and get the most active of the Agorists to get counter-economists into libertarianism, (61-62).

Yes, driving the movement to its knees with their false promises, the reformists are the bearers of bad will and lost hopes; they are the essential definition of counter-revolutionaries in a war where no time or resources can be wasted. Indeed, as it almost seems they are too destructive to be true, we can almost wonder if they were sent by the state to deliberately destroy the product of years of our hard work - such would be the speak of a conspiracy theorist!

Like the never-ending story of man’s fatal demise, the counter-revolutionaries prattle on with their soothsaying and their bloodied knives neatly nestled next to their bags filled with their thirty pieces of silver. Oh, the reformists speak of changes brought down by votes calling them steps to a path, while knowing fully well that not only are these merely the exceptions to the rule – and counterproductive ones at that! – but that such “victories” can only be accounted for as the initial results of the radicals’ direct action forcing governments into a bind where the only two options are to concede liberty, as we desire, or appease a few of the “libertarian-junkies” with momentary relief while simultaneously derailing the entire movement all together! With the government on the libertarian-junky’s side then, it is no wonder why our libertarian movement, despite all the professed progresses pointed to by the reformists, continues to flounder in the puddles of despair with a bunch of parlor revolutionaries sitting sea-sick at the helm.

Indeed, the reformists, bromidic as they are, find it all too easy to praise themselves for maintaining “repeals” and libertarian “progresses” while ignoring the actual engines that support the continuously undermined revolution. Pointing towards the repeal of the Corn Laws in the 19^th century, for example, the reformists, dressed in their usual cloth of deceit, speak highly of the politician credited for the repeals, Robert Peel, while completely ignoring such valiant examples of direct action as the continued riots in London after the initial imposition of the acts, the common harassment and assault against the dreaded extortionists that attempted to collect the fees of intimidation for their king, or the rampant counter-economic acts of smuggling shipments bypassing British law. Clearly, despite this pompous back patting, any attempt to claim victory by the incompetent hands of the parlor revolutionary is a slap in the face to the radical – and a most comical one at that!

However, not to take the credit for these moments of clumsy self-defeat, made by mere drunkards, rakes, and fools claiming the good name of libertarian, we radicals by no means find any particular pride in these specific conclusions to our momentous actions. Much like an inebriate adolescent stealing his father’s new car, a car used to further the health of his family, and crashing it in a dramatic blaze only to roll out reeking of rum and whores, the reformists ruin our movement’s diction and utterly destroy its potential. Taking the incentive and hope away from our comrades, substituting it for eased lullabies of a soothsaying Satanist in politician’s clothing, the reformists are collectively a rapist of the movement, a defeatist on the battle field, a deserter, a Benedict Arnold, a cross to bear, and a beast of burden that can neither be reasoned with nor converted.

The words of Voltairine de Cleyre resonate here,

The words of resonate here,But the evil of pinning faith to indirect action is far greater than any such minor results. The main evil is that it destroys initiative, quenches the individual rebellious spirit, teaches people to rely on someone else to do for them what they should do for themselves; finally renders organic the anomalous idea that by massing supineness together until a majority is acquired, then through the peculiar magic of that majority, this supineness is to be transformed into energy. That is, people who have lost the habit of striking for themselves as individuals, who have submitted to every injustice while waiting for the majority to grow, are going to become metamorphosed into human high-explosives by a mere process of packing!

Absolutely, it is the reason why our libertarian movement so consistently fails today. Packed primarily with the weak, the paltry, the timid, we have a movement filled with few more than parlor revolutionaries – reformists! Working towards the complete demise of the Anarchists’ cause then, these beasts of burden, these cowards, these fools can be defined in no better terms than as counter-revolutionaries. They are the snakes, the sniveling brats of the family, and the frightened daughters of liberty walking demurely into the black night well behind their more radical siblings. A Tory in drag, the reformists identify primarily with the conservatives and so thus will their demeanor dictate – conservatively, frightened of change, and far too weak to be granted a place in this revolution!

So, when my comrades, my friends, and my allies ask why I detest the parlor revolutionaries, I reply thus: There is no greater burden to a movement than compromise – it is an ultimate corruption of the spirit, a sapping of hope, and a disenchantment with principle. Here, I can only say that I, as the brother of a movement thieved and kicked to the ground in a huddle by the reformist, identify with the brother of a sister raped by his supposed ally. Indeed, the reformists are a disease, a cancer, and a virus, so only after this cancer is purged, only after this tumor is removed by force, can the body of the libertarian movement succeed; only after the radicals stand up to the reformists, only after the counter-revolutionaries are beaten back to the swamps will there ever be a realization of libertarian principles.

So then let this be a beginning of a beginning of a revolution. Let this commence a New Libertarian Alliance, not just against the state, but against all enemies of freedom and radicalism. Make no doubt about it, our revolution will be sweet, our revolution will be pure, but this can only be so after the disease of compromise is purged and the trials of the reformists resolved.